1-ON-1: Las Vegas mayoral candidate Victoria Seaman speaks to FOX5 about heat, crime and animals

LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) - Las Vegas voters will see something unusual on their ballot this election.

There won't be a Goodman running for mayor. Carolyn Goodman is term limited.

Voters have two choices, Victoria Seaman or Shelley Berkley.

FOX5 sat down with both candidates to see how they would confront some of the major issues the City faced this summer.

We begin with Victoria Seaman and our first question was about the summer's brutal heat wave and if there's anyway to mitigate the heat island effect in some city neighborhoods.

SEAMAN: What we're seeing with those heat islands is we're taking out our grass. We're taking out foliage because of our water situation, and that is not helping with the heat because we're having heat islands waves everywhere. It's been a very brutal summer, and one of the things that I've done is I've went out to meet with a company called Capillary Flow, and they can grow grass with a new technology that is underground, that uses 42% less than the latest technology. So I had a meeting with them. I ended up introducing them to Howard Hughes and the City, and now they're talking about, we're doing a Grand Park in Ward 2 in the new Howard Hughes developments, and we may be able to utilize that because, you know, we have to have our federal delegation work on that treaty. We are doing everything in Southern Nevada. We're using 2% less than our allotted amount, and it's time now to work on that treaty. But in the meantime, as a leader, I'm looking for innovative solutions, and I think we just might find one, because we can't keep taking the trees and the grass out.

HUCK: Let's talk about the Arts District. It seems like there's been a lot of crime in that area lately, a lot of break ins. What do you think is at play there, and what do you think you could do as mayor to kind of create more of a safe environment, because that area really depends on people feeling safe.

SEAMAN: Well, that's a great question. And when we are very solution oriented at the city, and I know I am, because I was a businesswoman, and in my ward alone, we resolved over 3700 now issues that come to our office, and that could be a little bit of other wards too, because we track everything. But one of the things that we're doing, we have an amazing chief of public safety, Jason Potts, who we got about a year and a half ago out of California, and he has a new program, a new task force. It's problem oriented policing. It's a task force of four, four officers, marshals and one sergeant, and they are now on foot patrol out in the Arts District and going from business to business in the daytime at night. It's more patrol and foot but they are out. Are being proactive, and we've seen that it's working. So these programs that we're doing at the city, and as mayor, I will continue, and I will support all the different task force that we are doing at the city, continue to force, continue to support them, because they work.

HUCK: You know, one of the heartbreaking things we saw this summer, it seems like there's been an uptick of animals abandoned, you know, and really left to die in some of the most heinous circumstances, as a mayor, is there anything you could do to try to roll back that?

SEAMAN: Well, John public service doesn't start when I'm vying for a position. I have been active, and you know that I was the one, it took two years, but brought all jurisdictions together for change at the Animal Foundation, I have consistently worked on tougher penalties, and as a matter of fact, we have an abandonment, we're raising the penalties for abandonment of animals, especially after Riba.

HUCK: And meanwhile, Animal Foundation, it seems like we're always, you know, reporting that they're being overrun by a band. I mean, surrenders, sure. I think the solution there is, do they just need a bigger facility?

SEAMAN: Well, I've talked about this, and I've again strengthened the penalties for illegal breeders. I think the real problem is the legal breeders. It's not the people who become breeders and get a license. Those are people who just don't want to fix their dogs for whatever reason. We only have maybe in the city, 50 legal breeders that don't breed their dogs. The rest of them are doing it illegally because they don't want us the oversight from us, and that is the problem. And I've strengthened as far as I can go, at a city level, the punishment for illegal breeding.

HUCK: We're just a few weeks away from election day. What would your message be to anyone who may still be undecided about who to vote for mayor.

SEAMAN: Well, there's a big, concise difference between me and my opponent. I come from California, and I've experienced what it's like to be in a city with extreme liberal policies. We can't afford that here. We actually need a bold leader.

We need someone who's going to lead the council and make sure that we don't get in these types of situations. I have five years on the city council. I have a record of experienced leadership and getting things done. I'm not a good politician, but I'm a great public service and I'm just asking everyone to support me so that I can make Las Vegas one of the safest cities in the union and make sure that I leave it better than when I came for all the residents.

We will hear from Shelley Berkley on Thursday evening.

FOX5 also interviewed the two of them before the primary on other issues like homelessness and affordable housing...you can find those interviews here: SEAMAN BERKLEY